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Teacher here, can you provide links to studies that support the existence of distinct learning styles? I've yet to find any compelling evidence so it's not that

Teacher here, can you provide links to studies that support the existence of distinct learning styles? I've yet to find any compelling evidence so it's not that I've discarded the idea but was never presented with a case to accept the idea in the first place.

coldtea 8y ago
What's commonly being debunked are particular systems for classification of individuals into learning styles, not the idea of learning styles in toto, or the idea of individuals being more inclined to/effective with a specific style. The naive way with many researches jump on the "so it's all a myth" bandwagon obscures the distinction. Here's how a meta-paper puts it: "The dominant theme was a stated need to use a diverse range of teaching methods. This is a separate issue to the use of Learning Styles and there was no suggestion in the survey that to not use Learning Styles was to advocate for all students to be taught the same way, and/or to use only one method of teaching. Neither of these approaches are advocated by the wider literature which seeks to ‘debunk’ Learning Styles, but it is clear from the abundance of comments on this theme that these two issues were related in the view of many of the participants. This is supported by the emergence of the related theme of ‘styles of learning rather than Learning Styles’; many participants had a looser definition of ‘Learning Styles’ than those introduced early in the survey. This finding leads us to urge caution and clarity in the continued ‘debunking’ of the ‘myth’ of Learning Styles. Learners obviously have preferences for how they learn. In addition, there is an obvious appeal to using a variety of teaching methods and in asking students to reflect on the ways in which they learn. However, these three concepts are unrelated to the (unsupported) idea that there is a benefit to learners from diagnosing their ‘Learning Style’ using one of the specific classifications (Coffield et al., 2004) and attempting to match teaching to those styles. However, these concepts were clearly linked in the mind of many of our participants". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366351/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366351/
- alan-crowe 8y ago
  Your link offers this example of why believing in "Learning Styles" might be harmful > These include a ‘pigeonholing’ of learners according to invalid criteria, for example a ‘visual learner’ may be dissuaded from pursuing subjects which do not appear to match their diagnosed Learning Style (e.g., learning music), I struggle with learning music off by heart. The suggestion that has helped me most was to learn the score by visualising the appearance of the notes on the stave. I've taken the usual approach: break it down into small pieces (that is learn a bar at a time), practice by writing out notes from memory onto music manuscript paper and checking, spaced repetition. Learning music off by heart is still terribly hard. Even when I can picture the appearance of the score in my head, I start of only able to play from that score at under quarter speed and without rhythm. Building up speed by repeatedly playing from my visual mental image takes a huge number of repetitions. The two concepts of "Learning Style" in play here strike me as very different. One is strategic "Oh, you are a visual learner, best give up playing the piano, because that is so auditory.". The other is tactical "Oh, you are a visual learner, here is the appropriate technique for learning to play music from memory."

coldtea 8y ago

What's commonly being debunked are particular systems for classification of individuals into learning styles, not the idea of learning styles in toto, or the idea of individuals being more inclined to/effective with a specific style. The naive way with many researches jump on the "so it's all a myth" bandwagon obscures the distinction. Here's how a meta-paper puts it: "The dominant theme was a stated need to use a diverse range of teaching methods. This is a separate issue to the use of Learning Styles and there was no suggestion in the survey that to not use Learning Styles was to advocate for all students to be taught the same way, and/or to use only one method of teaching. Neither of these approaches are advocated by the wider literature which seeks to ‘debunk’ Learning Styles, but it is clear from the abundance of comments on this theme that these two issues were related in the view of many of the participants. This is supported by the emergence of the related theme of ‘styles of learning rather than Learning Styles’; many participants had a looser definition of ‘Learning Styles’ than those introduced early in the survey. This finding leads us to urge caution and clarity in the continued ‘debunking’ of the ‘myth’ of Learning Styles. Learners obviously have preferences for how they learn. In addition, there is an obvious appeal to using a variety of teaching methods and in asking students to reflect on the ways in which they learn. However, these three concepts are unrelated to the (unsupported) idea that there is a benefit to learners from diagnosing their ‘Learning Style’ using one of the specific classifications (Coffield et al., 2004) and attempting to match teaching to those styles. However, these concepts were clearly linked in the mind of many of our participants". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366351/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366351/

alan-crowe 8y ago
Your link offers this example of why believing in "Learning Styles" might be harmful > These include a ‘pigeonholing’ of learners according to invalid criteria, for example a ‘visual learner’ may be dissuaded from pursuing subjects which do not appear to match their diagnosed Learning Style (e.g., learning music), I struggle with learning music off by heart. The suggestion that has helped me most was to learn the score by visualising the appearance of the notes on the stave. I've taken the usual approach: break it down into small pieces (that is learn a bar at a time), practice by writing out notes from memory onto music manuscript paper and checking, spaced repetition. Learning music off by heart is still terribly hard. Even when I can picture the appearance of the score in my head, I start of only able to play from that score at under quarter speed and without rhythm. Building up speed by repeatedly playing from my visual mental image takes a huge number of repetitions. The two concepts of "Learning Style" in play here strike me as very different. One is strategic "Oh, you are a visual learner, best give up playing the piano, because that is so auditory.". The other is tactical "Oh, you are a visual learner, here is the appropriate technique for learning to play music from memory."